Evanston Township High School ranked highly on The Washington Post’s annual list of America’s most challenging high schools.

ETHS, 1600 Dodge Ave., came in as the 17th most difficult school in Illinois and the 584th most challenging in the nation, according to The Washington Post list. Last year, ETHS ranked 18th in the state.

“Our whole community can be so proud about how highly ranked our high school is when compared to the best public, private and highly selective schools nationwide,” School District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said in a news release. “ETHS has a long tradition of excellence, and I feel especially proud of today’s students who, with the support of our fine staff, are taking the most challenging Advanced Placement classes in ETHS history and performing at the highest levels ever on the ACT national college admissions exam.”

The list is compiled based on a “challenge index,” which takes the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests given by a school each year and divides that number by the number of seniors who graduated in May or June, according to The Washington Post.

Schools with a ratio of at least one, meaning they had at least as many tests as graduates in 2014, were placed on the list. 22,000 private and public schools were assessed, but only 2,325 met the required ratio.

According to data from The Washington Post, ETHS offers 25 AP courses, one IB course and one Cambridge/ACE course. The school’s four-year graduation rate is 88 percent.

This year’s highest ranking school overall was BASIS Oro Valley in Oro Valley, Arizona. The highest ranked in Illinois was College Preparatory School of America in Lombard, Illinois, which came in at 173 overall.

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